Journey

Similar to how many remember Contra as grounds for two-player bonding and coordination, most agree Journey is better when you meet another player by chance during its two-hour expedition. Yet just as guns don’t automatically make Contra more urgent, the absence of nonstop violence in Journey doesn’t make it more sophisticated. Despite difficult challenges and machismo that may understandably be interpreted as exclusionary, the Konami shooter inspires more palpable comradery even in something as goofy as a high-five on a couch. With Journey, director Jenova Chen presents intimacy as a mirage in a desert and fits inclusivity into an abstracted model.

There’s no doubt that Journey is striking in how it encourages depictions of kindness. Its impromptu friendships relieve you by making the landscape seem less vast and the quest less cryptic. With only one player, Chen emphasizes loneliness, especially during the final stretch through a blizzard that deflates whatever buoyancy you had about reaching the end (here, Journey surpasses the sinking despair of Elude). With someone by your side, completing the quest can become secondary to ensuring you’re in step with another version of yourself. That you can recharge each other’s jumping ability results in a spontaneity and commitment that can be thrilling and blissful.

Its anecdotes function as mawkish indicators of social status, as the Internet crowd often forgets that being online is a privilege for more than a few.

Without companionship, Journey appears impersonal, showering you with that vaguely spiritual, monoethnic dullness of the adventure genre that The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask countered with community-based identity and heroism. Lacking an equivalent of the documentary segments from the Iñupiat platformer Never Alone, Chen evokes the Middle East and East Asia without insightful context, creating a sentimental but culturally hollow fantasy. Unsurprisingly, you can see traces of developer Thatgamecompany’s Flower (released three years before the 2012 debut of Journey) in the area-by-area progression, though Journey’s esoteric payoffs can’t match its predecessor’s single-player offering of beauty for the sake of beauty. Having a random online buddy in Journey both divorces you from isolation and shows ambition that few developers can match (Tale of Tales’s The Endless Forest is an embarrassing chatroom in comparison).

Still, Journey exemplifies the movement that disregards the universality of in-person interaction. Anecdotes about the game function as mawkish indicators of social status, as the Internet crowd often forgets that being online is a privilege for more than a few. Chen isn’t even consistent with the illusion of interpersonal connections. After you complete areas with your comrade, transitional cutscenes put the focus back on the singular you. This technique is distant compared to how James Earl Cox III cuts to husband-and-wife bed conversations between sections of The World the Children Made. As Cox’s game illustrates, the increasing use and requirement of technology in human life will reveal disconnects between us. After I finished Journey, it disclosed my companion’s name: MAINEV3NT_69. The contextual absurdity of the sexual reference rejects the intended mood and points to the clumsiness of Internet-based design. Always more personal, Contra was never this silly or inexact.

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I saw this (by noticing this author was the only 'mixed' review of the PS4 version of this game on Metacritic).

Universal Acclaim it said in the descriptor. Except for this fellow.

I think that says volumes about this review/reviewer.

Posted by MeriMakr8298 on 2016-08-23 17:16:06

"Intimacy"? "Vaguely spiritual"? "Inclusivity"? "Culturally hollow"? "Silly"? "Inexact"? I think this reviewer missed the point of the game by trying to find way too much meaning in what was not intended to be anything more than a calm and pleasurable experience. I think Jed Pressgrove is maybe trying too hard - I'd say he's attempting to write a review which (in his own words) "functions as an indicator of social status", and yes, it's "mawkish".

Posted by Ian Brett Cooper on 2015-12-02 20:15:53

I did not get journey. So I came here looking for someone who feels the same way. Though I have to say compareing Journey to Contra, Legend of zelda Majoras mask and even never alone seems totally wrong to me. Journey seemed pretty unique to me. It's just pure beauty, atmosphere and if you got a coop budy also intimacy. It just seemed boring to me since the game has no reall goal or meaning but to climb a stupid mountain.

Posted by Matej Škriba on 2015-07-31 09:49:41

I don't think the review approached the game correctly at all, but I would definitely suggest they read Jenova Chen's recent interview from Eurogamer. At least that way they can make a move to appreciating the game for its aims rather than their own isolated, lofty standards.

Posted by No Games Here on 2015-07-27 11:00:16

I understand what the review is getting at. I find it hard to agree though, except with that last bit about the other player's name being revealed at the end being an unnecessary addition. My first playthrough of Journey was solo. I had no idea the multiplayer aspect existed. It was wonderful, and I even wept - a mixture of sadness and joy - as the credits rolled. It was everything I wanted in a video game. The second playthrough was with multiplayer enabled, and iirc I had three different companions come and go over the course of it. It's been a while, but I don't remember this - "After you complete areas with your comrade, transitional cutscenes put the focus back on the singular you." - being an issue. It felt to me like my companions had just drifted off without my noticing, and then a different one would drift back in during the next segment. I was totally absorbed throughout the entire thing. I think I could solo it again and it would still be just as powerful.

Posted by simo000 on 2015-07-26 06:19:06

Agreed. That is one of the most abstract (not a complement) reviews I have read in some time. I think Jed may have completely missed the beauty and uniqueness of this Indie masterpiece. Oh well....can't please em all.